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I am just begging for someone to ground me, send me to my room and put me in time out. "Time out" as a behavioral intervention for preschoolers is frowned upon and in many cases prohibited. But I believe for adults--mothers, teachers, therapists, and especially artists and writers--it should be implemented frequently and for long periods of time. The formula for "time out" is one minute for each year of the child's life. For me that would be 62 minutes of glorious peace, quiet and creative time. I prescribe it for myself about three times a day so that morning, noon and night I can hide away and get something created. Unfortunately I cannot self medicate so I am doomed to wait patiently until some physician discovers that this is the best treatment and it has only healthy and positive side effects.

In time out I could read quietly, absorbing poems like mist on my skin instead of gobbling them up without a chance to fully appreciate the rhythm and the message. I…

Progress in writing is like the weather, especially if, like me, you write in several genres. Sometimes there are sunny skies and the writing goes well, I am focused on a project and moving along at a good flow. For instance, Saturday was one of those days. I typed out several pages in my novel and stashed them in a binder to await revision. Then I wrote one and a half new chapters in longhand in my ever present spiral notebook. I also made a few plot notes and created a new character. It was writing bliss.

Then Sunday came, and not so good. The weather itself was warm and sunny--a glorious day for winter in the northeast. The writing weather was a disaster. I did a lot of reading, got some errands accomplished and enjoyed the warm sun, but the only writing I achieved were my three morning pages--which I didn't write until 5:00 in the evening.

Not feeling very productive I ended the weekend grateful for what I got done on Saturday. Sunday night I made a commitment to make this a…

I discovered a writing secret on my recent trip to LA. In the 757 aircraft the pressure equalizes, the lights dim, and the white noise of the engines is so loud it feels like it's coming from deep inside my own body. I've heard the safety instructions, eaten my take on board lunch, since sandwiches on the plane are too costly, and I've drunk enough water to keep me from getting a dehydration headache. I have also read several chapters in the novel I brought along on vacation and listened to Adele's album on my i-pod. There are several hours left of this cross country flight.

I take out the spiral notebook I am using to write first draft chapters of my novel and here is where the secret reveals itself. Stuck in the plane at 35,000 feet about mountains and streams, nestled into the narrow, even for me, seat of the plane, strapped to my seat with few distractions, the story comes to me like a film on a 3-D screen. My characters' voices speak in my head, the movements …

Renee Howard Cassese was born on Long Island on September 8, 1949. She lived in Levittown from the age of four to fourteen, which spanned the years of 1953 to 1963. These were years of such joy and magic that Renee wanted to share them with you. According to her, and her best friend, Emilia, there is no other time or place that afforded such an idyllic childhood. The security and simplicity of that childhood lives within both these women, even now, after over fifty years of friendship. There were many lessons to be learned in the stories of Renee's childhood and she wants to share them with her blog readers.

Renee works as a school administrator, but her love is for writing fiction and poetry and some memoir. She would love to teach women how to write and tell their own stories. Her dream and goal is to be a known published author.

Renee's joys in life are her family, reading, cooking and being outdoors in nature. She loves travel, but mostly travels to visit her sons who live on opposite US coasts.

Renee loves people and the interchange of ideas, but requires many and frequent periods of solitude and silence to stay calm.

She would love to hear your comments about the site, especially from others who grew up in Levittown, or who live there now.